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Yes, you have every right to be outraged at the disgraceful treatment of children on America’s borders. But that does not give you the right to NOT be outraged by what America has done and is today still doing to children in, just to name a few places, Syria, Libya and Yemen. Be outraged, but don’t make it an echo chamber issue. Because if you do, you, too, are in a cage.

So if you see the wives of former presidents speak out about the child separation policies, ask yourself where they get the moral authority to speak out on such issues, after their husbands have bombed the crap out of many countries, killing many many children in the process. And don’t let’s get started about Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State.

Presently in Yemen, 20 million people depend on humanitarian aid, and the US are helping Saudi Arabia et al bomb the only port left through which that aid can reach them, to smithereens. 8.5 million Yemenis are already starving, and some 3 million of them are children. Where is your outrage over that?

Where is the outrage over the American and international treatment of Julian Assange, who has been in the Ecuador embassy in London for six years today? Where is it?

Don’t get coaxed into selective outrage by your news media, who like nothing better than to tell you what to be outraged by, and what not. If you allow that to happen, you have lost your freedom and your independence. Ask why they tell you a certain story at the moment they tell it. Ask why they tell it the way they do.

Yes, it has come to this. Every single story you read or hear needs to be scrutinized. Because there’s an agenda behind all of them, left, right or middle. And because the media have figured out that constantly driving you from one selective outrage to another is very profitable for them. Critical thought is not.

Yes, there are sociopaths in the Trump administration. But that’s nothing new. There have been sociopaths in every administration. It’s how our political systems work. Sh*t floats to the top.

Yes, US border policies have intensified. But whatever you think of that, migrants and refugees are not a new issue. Nor are the reasons why people flee their homes and communities. Whether it’s Africa or Central America, people flee because of what western governments, military and intelligence services have done to their homelands.

And until we stop doing that, they will keep coming. So much of our prosperity and power is derived directly from other people’s poverty and despair. So much of our wealth has been stolen from other people’s resources. If you want to be outraged at something or someone, start with yourself. Start thinking.

What is happening today is awful. But so many awful things happened in the past that you never showed outrage about. And yet these things are all inextricably linked. One leads to another.

America shouldn’t be outraged about Trump without being outraged about its entire political system, and all of its actors. Without that, outrage about Trump has no meaning, and will lead to nothing at all. Or rather, it will lead to a more divided country, full of people played for profit and political games.

The US invasion of Vietnam ended to a large extent because of protests in the streets. Perhaps that is what is needed once again. But the underlying issues, the ones that had led to the invasion in the first place, were not solved then. And that is what it is all about.

Nor is it an American problem per se. Europe is just as culpable. Children drowning, children in cages, what’s the difference, in the end it all comes from the same mindset. Which needs a radical reset. But what are the odds of that happening?

Our cultures are based on exploiting other peoples and nations, and then telling ourselves we deserve what we have. How are you going to change that? The only way to resolve the global refugee problem is to make sure people have a future where they are born. And the only thing we actually do is to make that impossible.

Okay, but what to do about it? Outrage?
I’ve been outraged most of my life; so what?
I marched against the war on Vietnam (more than once); so what? It changed nothing!
People love to think the anti-war demos against that war ended it; bullshit! It did not!
Has it changed anything?NO!
Only a full on revolt, revolution, will change anything; and generally, not for the better.
We’re fucked.
IMO, we’re at an every man for himself moment…
I would love to hear a realistic counter to that…

Well, that’s true. Followers abound everywhere.
So, there is no answer/solution.
No surprise there.
I know full well from past experience…
So, in fact, it is every man/human for themselves.
It’s just there are so few of themslves.
Pity, but really, I already knew that. It’s just, I had hoped for more…

“Whether it’s Africa or Central America, people flee because of what western governments, military and intelligence services have done to their homelands.”

The Wars for scarcer and scarcer resources, the Climate Change caused by the reckless Industrial Overproduction, the Droughts caused by climate change and big agribusiness, etc. etc. are driving our planet to the Cliff.

Look at the stages of Grief and Loss- denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance – where am I today?

If we accept that there is a cliff ahead, then the Next Stage should be planning and organizing for the Bottom of the cliff, or the Next Lower step in the Decline. Where are you on the last stage towards planning for it? Just being here with others that see the doom ahead, is a good way to get the support we need to forge ahead with what needs to be done, either alone or joining with others.

For me work in organizing the fight against the belching Oil Refineries locally helps. CA is having a Green Capitalism Summit hosted by Brown and Bloomberg in Sept; locally we are working to bring the various threads together to voice an Alternative. My main goal for Sept is to help with expanding a network of local folks who see the Cliff ahead. It’s like prepping for the Big Quake ahead.

But it doesn’t matter in the long run because they’ve been shaping the minds of your children and grandchildren all their lives. And you’ll be dead … and your own smidgen of truth forgotten … soon enough.

By the way, if any of those Kuwaiti infants tossed from their incubators (by Saddam) survived, they’d be young adults now. Stephanopoulos, Couric and Anderson Cooper really ought to set up some “convincing” interviews so that we can celebrate as a nation the subsequent carnage.

Where is my outrage? If my next door neighbour is unemployed, getting divorced, has teenaged children who are addicted to drugs as a way to deal with their situation, how far would I go to help them? Would I invite them into my home? Now extend this microcosmal example to the residents of my neighbouring suburb, county, country, continent. Would I invite them into my home?

I’m with V. Arnold on this one. The problem is not so much that we can’t go on like this (externalized costs are catching up with us), but that we are incapable of dreaming up a better world. Look at the science fiction – it’s either more of the same (space capitalism) or some apocalypses and return of the dark ages. I’m not concerned about the human race – there are tons of communities that live without external resource inputs. They are invisible right now, being poor and exploited, but can eventually blossom into a new civilization. I guess it will have very little in common with the current one.

I’m a little late to this commentary, but the children at America’s borders are not Mexican. They are fleeing American (CIA, economic hit man, etc) covert warfare that kills people you don’t know about. The American Academy of Pediatrics has the most detail I’ve found.
In the dramatic increase in arrivals that began in 2014 and continues at the time of writing this policy statement, more than 95% of undocumented children have emigrated from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador (the Northern Triangle countries of Central America), with much smaller numbers from Mexico and other countries. Most of these undocumented children cross into the United States through the southern border.2 Unprecedented violence, abject poverty, and lack of state protection of children and families in Central America are driving an escalation of migration to the United States from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2017/03/09/peds.2017-0483